


thin ice

by evictionaries



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, M/M, Piercings, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28117092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evictionaries/pseuds/evictionaries
Summary: In a pattern only obvious when Masumi looks at the whole, the two of them have been circling each other since before they ever met. Those stories Masumi used to hear about Banri, the glimpses they would catch of each other in the hallways; Banri with his hair bleached the same blond Masumi bleaches his. One acting out, one withdrawing in. Both getting nowhere fast.And now, in the same company but different troupes. Years they’ve known each other. Inevitable, probably. Something so natural Masumi never noticed until he finally turned and looked behind him.
Relationships: Settsu Banri/Usui Masumi
Comments: 21
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> no spoilers for jp beyond the fact that it takes place after masumi's magician play, so he's that far along in his arc

On November 22nd, Izumi invites Masumi grocery shopping. Even when Kumon bounces off the couch, saying he can help her carry the bags no problem, she insists on Masumi.

“It’s just—it’s been so long since we’ve hung out, right?”

And yet the entire time, she’s somewhere far away. Anything Masumi says only gets responded to in vague syllables, or her sentences trail off into nothing. They wander the aisles for ten minutes before leaving with only a bag of flour, and when Masumi asks if that’s all, Izumi mutters something about cake, something about Juza, something about how oh, you know how it is.

“Sure,” he says. “Yeah.”

Halfway through a park on the way home, she suggests taking a break on a bench. Another ten minutes and just as many people pass. Masumi sits there and holds the flour, watching his visible breath, and eventually—quiet but resolved and unwavering—Izumi says she started seeing someone.

Says she owes it to him to let him know.

Says he owes it to himself to move on.

Because they’ll always be family, right? But he should find someone his own age.

Says she should have put her foot down a long time ago.

Says it was unfair of her.

And Masumi cradles their flour baby, divorced single father without even being married in the first place.

He already knew.

All this agonizing and he already knew. Dragging it out like this will be his final selfishness.

On November 3rd, Izumi left looking especially beautiful. Especially nervous. She said she was meeting some friends when he asked, and maybe that’s all it was—she’s not a liar—but she was wearing lipstick. She came back with it smudged off.

Which could have happened when she ate, but after that day something changed. She was smiling more, things rolled off her shoulders easier. It was a happiness that went beyond her love for theatre. Beyond anything he could do for her.

Of course he noticed.

“Masumi?”

Here, now, on November 22nd, she jumps to her feet when someone else calls his name. A shadow falls over the dead leaf Masumi had been trying to telekinetically set on fire and their tiny bubble, their tiny snowglobe world, shatters like nothing.

“Oh—and Izumi.”

“Banri,” she blurts, “hi!” She snatches the flour from Masumi’s grip. “W-well, I’ll get this home. Juza needs to eat, y’know! See you later!”

And with that, she’s gone. A frigid breeze blows through where the flour had been keeping Masumi warmer than he realized and the bench creaks under Banri’s weight.

“She told you, huh?”

Masumi’s eyes snap to him but Banri just shrugs.

“Saw them together the other day. She asked me not to say anything, so…”

“Who is it? It’s not one of the guys from Mankai, is it? Sakyo or—”

“Not my place to say.”

Masumi jumps to his feet. The moment he moves Banri does too, blocking him off from the direction Izumi disappeared.

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t pull this shit anymore, Masumi, just leave her alone.”

Masumi glares, then heads the other way. The last place on Earth he wants to be is stuck in that noisy dorm. With her, yes—always—but not like this. Not right now.

Especially not with Banri dogging every step.

Halfway to the street, Masumi stops and spins on his heel.

“Go away.”

“I’m going downtown, idiot.” Banri strides by, pointing his chin at the street visible just beyond the park’s trees. Then he stops too. “Actually, do you wanna—?”

“No.”

“C’mon, Taichi just bailed on me, we were supposed to—”

Masumi starts walking.

“Hey, listen—”

Banri grabs his arm. Masumi’s vision goes white. Every muscle and tendon pulls tight but Masumi hasn’t done more than swing his elbow backwards before Banri has his wrist in a vice grip.

“You _seriously_ wanna try me?”

Eyes wild, jaw set, Banri’s straight out of the stories that used to float around Hanasaki. The ones Masumi would hear every time the teachers made him keep his headphones off. And maybe Masumi hasn’t changed that much since then either.

He looks down at his hand. Curled into a fist, knuckles white. The same fist that hurt Izumi.

Stupid. Stupid to throw a tantrum and stupid to throw it at the king of them. Anger comes to Masumi in unbidden bursts but Banri revels in it, makes it his own.

After squeezing Masumi’s wrist in one final warning, Banri shoves his arm away.

White sunlight washes over the park, bleaching everything as sharply as the autumn breeze that snatches the breath from their lungs. Too bright, too stark, as cold as the silence between them.

Masumi lifts his gaze from a dented pop can.

“What’s downtown?”

Banri, tall and vibrant in his bright purple bomber, he just smirks. All casual as if he doesn’t constantly do the most to stand out.

“Piercing parlour.” He taps his nose. “Wanna come with? Better than moping around, yeah?”

And Masumi—for lack of better options—shakes his head in exasperation more than refusal.

“Fine.”

The moment they’re on the bus, Masumi puts his headphones on.

If Banri has anything to say about it, he doesn’t. He ends up putting in his own and playing some game on his phone. Ankle crossed over his knee, thigh hovering over Masumi’s, inches short of touching it. Obnoxious in his disregard for how much space he occupies.

Masumi keeps his hands in his pockets, knees together. Folded into his designated space. Legs pass through his field of vision every time the bus shudders to a stop, until he closes his eyes. The music seeping through his headphones drones heavy beneath shrill guitar feedback and fragmented strings. He squeezes out the sunlight filtering through the windows, picking apart every separate piece, unraveling the whole. Bass rumbles through his head, the engine rumbles through his chest—and Banri elbows him. Masumi opens his eyes.

“This is our stop.”

Downtown is always busy. Full of people whose schedules are full of acting like their schedules are empty as they float between boutiques and cafés. Brainless as a zombie, Masumi follows the path Banri cuts through them, down a cramped sidestreet, up a flight of stairs, and into a place that smells clean. Like nothing but clean.

A woman sitting behind a glass counter greets Banri like an old friend. His loud voice easily overtakes the ancient death metal bleeding from the sound system. Masumi hangs back, taking in the tattoo flash hanging on the walls and the aquarium by the window.

“What about your friend?”

“Doubt it.”

Banri and the woman are looking at him. Tattoos peeking out from beneath her shirt, hair the colour of insulation, she’s like something from another planet, and she smiles the moment Masumi meets her gaze. The silver rings around her lip tilt with the motion.

“We got a special here: buy one piercing, get the second seventy-five percent off. Banri’s wimping out on me, but you want it, I’ll allow it.”

“You wanna? Go for it, my treat.”

Masumi shakes his head and Banri shrugs like he saw it coming. Another minute of banter later, the woman is leading him to a door on the left.

Just before opening it she asks, “You at least wanna watch?”

Masumi almost refuses again, the possibility having never occurred to him, but Banri’s staring. Something about coming this far but not going all the way— _knowing_ the kind of things Banri would have to say about it—makes him nod.

Beyond the door sits a cramped room with a chair like a dentist’s taking up most of the space. Here the walls are covered too, but in paintings, photographs, and a floor-length mirror that reflects Masumi acting as Banri’s coat rack. His gaze moves from himself to a grayscale photograph of a woman hanging from hooks pierced through her flesh, completely suspended by the strength of her own skin. Revulsion seeps into his core, but his gaze keeps flicking back no matter how he keeps looking away.

Banri sits sideways on the chair, pushing his hair out of his face. The woman digs through a cabinet, then places several packaged implements on a small metal table. She wheels it over, winking when she catches Masumi staring.

Her too—her hair, her vibrant skin, human but the wrong colour; something unnatural, strange and foreign, but more real than any of the pictures—Masumi can’t stop looking at her, either.

Wearing gloves and a mask, she unwraps a metal hoop and needle, then rolls the needle in some kind of clear gel. Every move is easy and practised. Banri’s watching too. His foot keeps bouncing. His fingers are laced so tight they’re discoloured.

They laugh a little, joking around with each other when the woman sticks her fingers into Banri’s nose, feeling for something. As soon as she lines up the needle, they’re all business.

“Deep breath in,” she says and Banri complies. “Deep breath out. Deep breath in. And out. In. And—”

She pushes and the needle comes out the other side. Only a slight twitch in his brow shows Banri felt anything. More work from the woman and then she straightens up and there’s a silver hoop hanging from the middle of Banri’s nose. He jumps to his feet and goes over to the mirror, all grins. He meets Masumi’s gaze and grins even wider.

“Now what?”

They’re standing on the street in front of the parlour and Banri’s grinning. He hasn’t _stopped_ grinning. Fidgeting with his jacket zipper, cracking his knuckles, tapping his foot, sparking a metal lighter.

“Now what,” he asks and Masumi’s first instinct is that he wants to go home. He wants to see Izumi—and then he remembers. As if he forgot. As if it hasn’t been a slow bleed this entire time.

 _Now what_.

He doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be anywhere. He doesn’t want to be with Banri, he doesn’t want to be alone. He wants to stop feeling like this. But would that be denying his feelings in the first place? He doesn’t want that either. Banri keeps watching. Masumi wishes he would look somewhere else.

“Well… hey, there’s a record store not far from here,” Banri says. Masumi knows. He goes there all the time. “Let’s go check it out.”

And Masumi, for lack of any better options, nods his head.

After the record store, there’s a thrift shop Banri wants to visit.

Then a boutique.

Then a café.

They sit and they drink coffee and Masumi takes his black like the adult he’s trying to be and makes sure to burn his tongue and then they run into Azami on the way home and he picks up Masumi’s slack in the conversation as they sit on the bus and Masumi scrapes his tongue against the roof of his mouth instead of saying anything but Banri never asks him to say anything. Sitting in their separate seats, legs only almost touching, Banri bleeds over the edges onto everything but Masumi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> essentially an expansion of [this](https://twitter.com/hellsgnaw/status/1302298711305879552) if you're interested


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the inconsistent chapter length & odd pacing, this was originally a oneshot but i got impatient about posting
> 
> thank you for the kind comments ❤

“If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.”

Tsumugi paces before the mirror, surrounded by audience with Izumi and Winter Troupe reflected sitting along the wall behind him, and Masumi by the door.

“First of all I dismembered the corpse.” Tsumugi holds out his hands, fervent eyes seeing something that isn’t there. “I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.”

At this point even Hisoka is paying attention.

“There was nothing to wash out—no stain of any kind—no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all.”

Tsumugi laughs, a short and desperate thing, just as Masumi closes the door behind him. Instead of snapping out of it, he stomps across the room and reels Masumi in with a gesture, forcing him into the role of an officer.

“It grew louder, louder, louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God—no, no! They heard. They suspected. They knew. They were making a mockery of my horror.”

Masumi holds up the brand new script.

Tsumugi’s eyebrows disappear into his hair but he doesn’t break character beyond that.

“This I thought,” he says, “and this I think.”

“Izumi.” Masumi offers her the script instead.

She smiles. Hurries over and smiles like she always smiles, smiles like nothing has changed. And Masumi does not look away as if he’s wishing it hadn’t.

“But anything was better than this agony. Anything was more tolerable than this derision. I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer, I felt that I must scream or die. And now—again! Hark! Louder! Louder! Louder! _Louder_!”

Izumi takes the script and flips through the first couple pages. “How’s Tsuzuru?”

“Sleeping. Got Omi to move him into bed.”

“Good… Okay. Thank you, Masumi.”

Izumi snaps the script shut and strides over to Tsumugi, busy bowing to his troupe mates. Eyes on the script, the rest of the troupe close in on them like a flock of scavengers.

Some of them must know. About her seeing someone. But none of them would care like Masumi cares.

They’re talking about the play. Masumi has no place here anymore, he’s overstaying his welcome.

“The melodrama of horror,” Tasuku says, and Izumi is nodding, eyes alight in that way they only get when she’s talking about theatre or curry. And maybe, he supposes, her new boyfriend.

There’s no foothold in their conversation, nothing for Masumi to cling to. Shipwrecked, on the verge of drowning, he’s somewhere he doesn’t belong. He washes out to sea while they’re on the shore with their backs turned. Like they got bored of him waiting for the moon to pull the tide over his head. What can they do for someone that refuses a lifeline? Because he promised: as long as she’s safe and happy, he’ll drown without complaint.

Under the guise of scratching his brow, Masumi bows his head and squeezes his eyes shut. He submerges himself, sinks into the dark depths, and their voices turn to whale song.

But somehow he’s not drowning. As soon as he starts to suffocate, instinct has him straighten his legs, and when he surfaces, Tsumugi is watching him. He smiles before going back to the conversation.

Tsumugi probably knows. He and Izumi hang out. Everyone in their twenties, they hang out and they drink and Masumi is left behind—always left behind, never one of them—but this time Masumi leaves first. Drags his feet through the water like so much wet concrete and heads for the door.

Izumi throws a goodbye over her shoulder. Masumi returns it. And that’s all.

“That’s all, he says.”

Banri leans closer to a shop window, holding his hair out of his eyes. He angles his head, getting a better look at his septum ring. A few weeks and it’s like it’s always been there.

“Yeah, _that’s all_. It looks sick. And now that I’m not getting in as many fights as I used to, there’s no worries about it getting torn out. So why not?”

Reflected beside him, Masumi stands half a head shorter, his face lost beneath the shadow of his hair. Ghosts loitering on the sidewalk, superimposed over headless mannequins wearing customized vintage.

“Seems pretty pointless.”

“Man, you sound like Sakyo.”

Sakyo.

Sakyo would care. Provided it’s not him.

Masumi looks over his shoulder as if he’s going to be there, ready to lecture them for wasting time and money wandering from store to store. Instead all he sees is Taichi through the glass front of a beauty supply, weighing two bottles of product against each other.

“Old fart tried giving me shit for it,” Banri says. “But like I told the guy, I got pierced between shows and by the time I’m in another, it’ll be healed enough that I can flip it up. Dude didn’t think I’d thought that far ahead.”

Banri paces with all the energy of a predator in captivity. When Masumi doesn’t throw him any scraps of meat, he gives up and leans against a telephone pole.

“See, that’s exactly it; everyone’s got some shit to say.” He shakes his head, digging through his jacket pocket for his lighter. Building aggression dissipates in a sigh and whatever’s left gets broken up with each failed spark. “Well, there’s your reason, I guess.”

“To piss people off?”

“No, dude, it’s—well, maybe. But it’s more than that, it’s like… a line drawn in the dirt, I guess.” Banri opens his mouth to say something else but hesitates. Another false start, then he adds, “It’s… affirming. Or something.”

He clears his throat and lowers his gaze to the shopping bags at their feet. Clothes in some, vinyls in another. A group of laughing girls pass between them and Masumi stares through the throng, taking in the details of Banri’s face. His sharp eyes, the shape of his nose—and of course the ring that hangs from the end of it.

“It makes sense,” Masumi says. Banri lifts his head. “It makes more sense than anything else you’ve ever said.”

“Fuck you.”

Again Banri digs in his pocket, this time coming out with a pack of smokes. Masumi glances over his shoulder again. Having decided on whatever he was looking at, Taichi’s at the register.

“‘Sides,” Banri mumbles around a cigarette he struggles to light, “could ask you the same thing. Why bother bleaching your hair? Since it’s so pointless.”

At mere mention of them, Masumi’s bangs start tickling his nose. He brushes them aside and tucks his hair behind his ear.

Pointless, probably, but something. And he’s come to learn that something is always better than nothing.

He bleached his hair because he wanted to. Because no one was around to tell him no. Thinking more about it, it was probably a way of feeling out how far he could go before his leash pulled tight. If his parents got mad then they were paying attention. But they never said anything, and Masumi was left with something all his own.

The beauty supply’s door swings open with the jingle of a bell. Taichi hurries across the street and before he even reaches them, he’s whining.

“You guys are such bullies.” He holds a plastic bag up and gives it a shake. “I got what you wanted, _your highnesses_.”

Banri snatches the bag. “Good boy,” he says, and starts going through it, checking over the bottles. Bleach for Masumi, treatment for Banri, dye for Taichi.

Masumi touches his bottom lip. Pinches it between his fingers and tugs it to the side.

One, two, thee, four. Five piercings line Taichi’s ears. A step beyond Banri’s for his stretched lobes.

If Banri’s piercings are a line drawn in the dirt, Taichi’s must be a signpost dug deep and standing tall. Neon begging someone to _look at me, I’m here_.

Masumi touches, touches, touches his bottom lip.

“Oh,” Banri says, and Masumi lets his hand fall. “I’ve been meaning to say: &yet announced a tour the other day, eh? You see it? They’ll be in town for New Year.”

Bent over to pick up the shopping bags, Taichi’s head pops up. “What’s &yet?”

“A band Masumi likes.”

“We gonna go see them?”

“Me and Masumi are.”

“What—hey—”

“I thought you didn’t like them,” Masumi says.

Banri, busy ruffling Taichi’s hair, doesn’t look at him. “I don’t _hate_ them,” he says. Shoves Taichi away and adds, “I just don’t think any song needs to be half an hour long. But maybe it’ll be different live.”

Masumi stares. Banri catches his eye and grins. Always, always that smug grin.

“I still gotta pay you back for my birthday, yeah?”

Banri’s birthday—a night of sound assaulting every sense—sound you could feel and smells you could taste. A storm packed into a small club, soaking a hundred bodies to the bone.

After offering to hold onto Banri’s jacket, Masumi spent most of his time watching the chaos from a booth seat, where a couple ended up joining him. The three of them sat on the back of the bench, and from there, Masumi had a perfect view of Banri’s blond head in the churning pit. Next to purples and greens, he was (for once) not the most obnoxious.

He came back eventually. In the middle of the second set, just before the headliners came on, he climbed up on the bench and sat on Masumi’s other side.

“You lost your spot.”

“What?”

Masumi repeated himself but Banri tapped his ear and shook his head. Hand clutching the bench, fingers digging into its fake leather, Masumi leaned over and put his mouth beside Banri’s ear.

“You’re not gonna be able to get close to the stage again.”

Banri smelled gross like sweat and cigarettes. Sweat and something warmer. Cologne.

Or it was just the air around them. Like they were melting into the atmosphere.

“I came here with you,” Banri yelled back.

Masumi pulled away.

“Okay,” he said, and he couldn’t even hear himself. Beyond the vibrations in his throat, he couldn’t trust that he had spoken at all.

New Year’s is something else entirely. Guitar drones for ten full minutes as the band takes the stage and sets up, and even then they don’t acknowledge the crowd talking quietly among itself. No one claps when the cellist finally starts playing, they just stop talking. They shut up and pay attention.

Hidden behind a sheer curtain that never rises, further obscured by black and white projections of demolition footage, the band brings the song to a slow crescendo, something frantic and desperate and aware of its own desolation but reaching hopefully for something more, something Masumi feels from the soles of his feet to deepest part of his chest, sometimes blending with his heartbeat, sometimes beating in direct opposition. Calming (if not dull) stillness contrasted by moments of frenzy. Both equally necessary. Both coming together to make something bigger than themselves. Like they’re melting into the atmosphere. But like there’s something undeniably _theirs_ to claim.

“Goddamn.”

Banri groans loud, twisting from side to side.

At three in the morning, no heartbeat pulses cars through the city’s veins. Cries of concert-goers echo off the concrete, calling cabs, bumming smokes, or crowding into the 24-hour diner down the street. Bathed in the green of a traffic light guiding no one, Banri stretching his arms above his head until his back cracks.

“Well… I still don’t think songs need to be half an hour long, but—” he catches Masumi’s eye “—not bad. Not my thing but I get the appeal.”

They cut across the empty intersection and head for the only car parked down the side street—Itaru’s car, which he probably let Banri borrow after holding him to some contract in one of the games they play. How Banri must have suffered just to be here. Masumi allows himself a smile.

“&yet’s iconic for a reason,” he says. He jiggles the handle but it’s locked; Banri’s struggling with the keys in the dark. “One of those bands that… doesn’t necessarily define the genre, but that _redefined_ what could be done with it.”

And then he’s rambling, saying stuff that doesn’t matter, stuff Banri doesn’t care about, but he can’t stop. And Banri isn’t making him stop, he’s nodding along even after they’re seated inside the car, even after they’re parked at a red light two blocks over and Masumi’s still going.

“The members are filmmakers, activists, stay-at-home parents, photographers—and they use that in their music, in their album design, in their performances. Instead of getting locked in the aesthetics of misery, they—what?”

“What what?”

Banri’s grinning. Always grinning.

“You look like an idiot,” Masumi tells him.

“It’s just funny… hearing you all excited. But it’s good, I like it. Keep going.”

Masumi crosses his arms and looks out the window.

“Shut up,” he mutters.

Banri laughs—deep, real, head thrown back—but quickly stops. He twists in his seat, peering out the driver’s window.

“Is that—? Izumi.”

“What?”

But Banri’s ignoring him, rolling down the window. “ _Ladies_. Happy New Year.”

Ladies. Masumi leans over the console so quick his seatbelt slices him in half. Two women are cutting across the street and he only knows one.

“Banri, happy New Year!” Izumi leans down to cross her arms along the door. Only then does she catch sight of Masumi. “Ohhh hey, you. What’re you two up to?”

She’s wasted. That’s probably why she doesn’t remember Masumi _telling_ her that he was hanging out with Banri tonight.

The woman Masumi doesn’t know hangs back, rubbing her hands awkwardly up and down her thighs, smiling when Masumi meets her eye. He doesn’t do her the same courtesy.

Izumi gestures toward her and says some name. “My girlfriend,” she adds, and it washes over Masumi—less the tide and more an avalanche.

Banri looks at the radio, checking the time as if it matters when the whole world is about to be crushed under the next ice age.

“Probably not safe to be wandering around this late. Hop in, I can drop you off wherever you’re going.”

Izumi should be coming home, where she lives with Masumi and everyone else, and tomorrow they'll go to the shrine and eat good food, but she looks at her girlfriend as if there’s another option. After a couple barely-formed sentences, they decide they’ll part ways—obviously—and climb in the backseat.

Banri keeps the conversation going while Izumi’s all giggles. It’s mostly her girlfriend answering, her voice deep and even. Masumi stares ahead, occasionally glancing into the side mirror—quickly, like he’s going to see something as painful as a kiss or held hands. All he sees is himself, drawn and exhausted. Sweat that plastered his hair to his forehead like something had been exorcised from him has dried, and now he just looks in desperate need of a shower.

The girlfriend lives somewhere close, and then it’s just the three of them.

No one says anything. Neither of the guys bother to put on music, they just listen to whatever’s on the radio.

Silence lasts all the way into the dorm’s lounge, where Izumi collapses onto the couch with a dramatic groan. No longer laughing, it’s like all the life has been sucked out of her. Banri hovers for a second before muttering something about getting her a glass of water.

“I’ll do it,” Masumi insists, but Banri shakes his head.

“Look after her.”

As if he’s ever had to be told that before. But as soon as they’re alone, Masumi fidgets like he’s been abandoned with some stranger.

“Banri’s _sooo_ nice,” Izumi sneers, loud enough for him to hear (in the kitchen, a cupboard slams). “…When he lets himself be. But I’m fine, really, I’m starting to sober up—not that I was that drunk in the first place. We only had a couple drinks.”

Masumi sits beside her, leaving enough space between them for another person

“You seemed pretty drunk.”

“Aww no, why, was I acting weird?” Izumi squishes her pink cheeks between her hands. “I was just… happy.”

A pile of DVDs sit next to the TV. A few hours ago, this place was probably filled with noise but now it’s completely silent—except for the banging in the kitchen, drawers and the fridge keep opening and closing, a glass being set down, then washed, then set down again. So much work for one drink.

“Tell me about her,” Masumi says.

Still with her face squished into something stupid, Izumi glances sideways. Again Masumi does not look away. He waits.

“She’s… into restoration,” Izumi starts, lowering her hands. “Old furniture and stuff. Her parents own an antique store, so I guess she got brought up into it, the way some of us do. And… she’s got a dog. Biggest dog I’ve ever seen,” she laughs, “just this huge pile of fur.” Her laughter fades quickly, but her smile doesn’t. “She’s funny. Easygoing. Attentive but not overbearing. She listens when I ramble about theatre, even though she’s not really into it.”

“She doesn’t like theatre?”

“She doesn’t _hate_ it. She’d go to a show if I took her—she’s coming to the next one, actually—but it’s not something she’d do on her own.”

“And that’s okay?”

Izumi keeps her eyes on her hands. Massaging her thumb into her palm, spinning a simple golden band around her index.

“Yeah. Yeah, y’know, I always thought anyone I ended up with would have to be into theatre, but the older I get… I guess I’ve realized that it’s good to have different interests.”

_Then I’ll quit theatre._

“You’re gonna have stuff your partner isn’t a part of, they’re gonna have stuff you’re not part of… and it’s fine. You need that, you need space to breathe, to be your own people. Then you come together stronger for your time apart.”

 _I’ll quit,_ Masumi could say—say, promise, threaten. Maybe then she realizes how much she would hate to lose him. It’ll be like when he almost left before. For once she’ll be the one chasing and Masumi will be the one that’s wanted.

Or he follows through. He quits acting, goes to school full time, graduates and gets a job doing—something. Anything. Whatever would impress her. He grows into a better man, successful and worldly, and moves them into a beautiful apartment with south-facing windows. They’ll get a cat—or a dog, if that’s what she likes. A better dog than her girlfriend’s.

Either way he doesn’t lose her, they don’t grow apart, and this isn’t ending.

But Masumi stays quiet. Quiet like he knows how, quiet like he’s been his whole life. No noise comes from the kitchen either. After running out of ways to stall, Banri’s given up.

“There’s… a lot I’m still learning about myself,” Izumi says to her hands. “Seems like more the older I get. But finding someone else that—oh, no, I guess that’s kind of an intense thing to say about someone I’ve only just started seeing.”

Her beautiful hands, she brings them to her pink cheeks and laughs again.

“I just—I really like her.”

And she’s smiling, smiling, smiling like she can’t stop smiling—and Masumi smiles too.

“Yeah. I’m glad you’re happy.”

Izumi must be drunker than she thinks, because she reaches over and ruffles his hair, then slides her hand down to cup his cheek. The way his mother used to, the way his grandmother still does.

“You’re a good kid, Masumi.”

Dragging his feet too loudly to be anything other than on purpose, Banri slides into the living room. One hand around a glass of water, the other slipping his phone into his pocket. Timing being just one more thing Banri Settsu gets perfect.

After wishing them goodnight, Izumi takes the glass to her room and leaves behind a silence heavy enough to have its own gravitational pull. Masumi doesn’t move. Metric tonnes worm their way into his ear and down his spine and crush his lungs until his breathing grows shallow and still he doesn’t move.

Seconds, minutes, hours later, the couch bounces with the weight of Banri collapsing onto it. Graceless and obnoxious and—where their legs touch, where he rubs Masumi’s back—warm.


	3. Chapter 3

“Shit.”

Masumi slaps the back of his neck but water’s already rolling down his back. A steady drip off the icicles got him right before he could hurry through the front door. Behind him, the sun melts the last of the snow, forcing it to retreat to the shadows.

“Oh, you’re home!”

Taichi skids to a stop on his way past the entrance, his loud voice resounding off the walls. He hurries over and takes the groceries Masumi had been carrying, then instead of leaving, watches him take off his shoes.

“What?”

“I was—are you busy tonight?” Taking Masumi’s silence for an answer, Taichi jabs his thumb over his shoulder. “Come hang out with me and Tenny. Omi’s gone home for the weekend and I’ve got the room all to myself, so we’re—well, you should come hang out. You can, right?”

Masumi keeps his head down, focusing on lining up his shoes, on sliding into his slippers. January 15th. Azuma’s birthday isn’t for another week and they already celebrated Guy’s.

Masumi lifts his head. Taichi’s watching every move.

Pity, maybe. By this point, word has reached even Mankai’s most oblivious.

“I’m not busy.”

Taichi’s eyes go wide and his face lightens to a grin. “Nice! It’ll be fun. Maybe I can get Yuki over and it’ll be a Last Runway reunion. Or Azami, or—just come over around eight, ‘kay?”

“For what—this?”

Yuki stands with his arms crossed at the door, glaring at the cans and bottles on the table. Sitting on the floor, playing cards on the other side of an aluminum and plastic wall, Masumi and Tenma must not make the most persuasive image.

“Hard pass. Unlike you idiots, I have stuff to do.”

Taichi grabs the door when he moves to shut it. “C’mon, Yuki, just for a bit.”

Over Taichi’s shoulder, Yuki meets Masumi’s eye.

“Fine… I guess.”

Pity it is.

He strides in and sits across from Masumi, folding his skirt neatly around his legs. He grabs the nearest bottle and frowns down at the label. “So cliché… If you waited a couple months for your birthday, you’d be able to go to an actual bar. Who bought all this?”

Taichi takes his place beside him, letting out one long _uhhh_ while Tenma snorts. Slaps a card face-down on the table and says, “ _I’m_ the one who paid for it. Banri could’ve afforded it but he said—”

“Uh huh. Thought so.”

Yuki pushes the bottle of rum away but Taichi grabs it before it gets too far. He pours some into a glass, adds cola, thinks, adds more rum. He slides the glass to Masumi. Masumi shakes his head and grabs a can of beer. The rum goes to Tenma.

Only after the first sip does Masumi realize he should have accepted.

“Banri’s not coming?”

Tenma peers into his glass. “I think you got the, uh… proportions wrong.”

“Aw, what? Wait, Banri?” Taichi, pulling out his phone, takes forever to answer. “Uh… Banri’s twenty, he doesn’t have to sneak anymore, right? Did I put in too much rum or too much cola?”

“Rum.”

Footsteps pass by the door and the room goes quiet. Not that what they’re doing is that big of a deal, but the spirit of rebellion is strong enough to sway. The footsteps disappear, a door closes, and the room lets out a collective breath.

“I just thought this would be his kind of thing,” Masumi says. “Especially since he bought all this.”

“With my money,” Tenma adds.

“Banri’s out with Citron and Kazunari,” Yuki says. “Karaoke. They wouldn’t shut up about it all during practice earlier.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry about them.” Taichi slides the next glass to Yuki. “Here.” The next he keeps for himself and raises into the air.

A silence denser than the fear of getting caught blankets the room. Taichi looks around, his light no less dimmed, and eventually everyone else holds up their drinks, too.

Once, when Masumi was thirteen, he stole some of his parents’ sake while they were away on business. Not yet bold enough to push their limits, it was only a sip, far from enough to get him drunk. That’s the extent of his experience. There’s been no friends to drink with, no family gatherings and certainly no cousins to sneak him some, nothing.

After knocking his can against everyone’s glass, Masumi downs the biggest mouthful he can manage, using all his acting skills not to pull a face.

All he can say for sure is that the sake tasted better, but that the beer comes with better company.

The ceiling arches a thousand feet away, what may as well be the painted masterpiece of an ancient chapel and, curled up on the floor with his eyes hidden by his arm, heathen, unbeliever, overcome by the glory, Masumi has never been so small. His own language has never been so forgein in his ear. A litany of teenage boys resounds off that cavernous ceiling, the syllables familiar, the voices as well, but they don’t come together to form any words he knows.

The voices, though—

“Tenny, hey. C’mon, get up.”

Words not meant for Masumi. But it doesn’t matter because he’s not there, until he is.

He opens his eyes and the world rebuilds itself piece by piece. He knows the layout, the furniture. He knows Azami’s back. Azami is there now. Azami tells Yuki about how he’s been invited to do more make-up for another fashion show and Taichi kneels over Tenma. Draws on his face. Tenma passed out, Taichi laughing, Masumi passed out, or supposed to be.

He’s watching Azami. Azami now and Azami in twenty years. Azami the actor and Azami the makeup artist.

Masumi sits up.

“I have to leave,” he says. “I have to go.”

Taichi says something, he thinks, but Masumi shakes his head.

“I have to go. I gotta go.”

Actor that he is, he doesn’t stagger when he gets up. He makes his audience believe he’s a man with his feet on solid ground, even when the storm rages and the ship lurches left. An unbeliever scorned by god or a sailor on a ship abandoned by its captain, he doesn’t know which he is, he doesn’t know where he is, he barely gets through the door—barely registers colliding with Sakyo.

“Oh,” Masumi says.

Sakyo doesn’t say anything.

Masumi throws up on his shoes.

The TV in the lounge, with all the movies always stacked beside it, it’s connected to both a VCR and DVD player. The VCR is mostly for those old Mankai tapes but after the second time they hooked it up, no one unplugged it, knowing that eventually they’ll watch those tapes again. Because whether it’s an anchor or a rudder, they’re tied to their past.

00:00 still flashes on the VCR. The device may be a permanent fixture now, but no one will admit it and set the time. Frozen in some silent, timeless space, Masumi watches the numbers blink slow and not change.

Sakyo, wearing a clean pair of pants, sets a glass of water down on the table.

“Figured something like this would happen,” he says. When Masumi looks at him, he adds, “Nanao isn’t as discreet as he seems to think he is.”

Instead of leaving, Sakyo sits on the other couch, crossing his legs at the knee and his arms over his ribs. All twisted up, closed off. Same as Masumi. So Masumi sits a different way. Leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.

“Do what you want,” Sakyo says, “be a stupid teenager while you still can. But if you ever jeopardize a performance or cause trouble for anyone—Izumi especially—I won’t be so forgiving a second time.”

Masumi drinks the water slow, icy against the mint aftertaste of his toothpaste, then puts the cool glass to his forehead. Closes his eyes against Sakyo, against the glowing zeros, against thoughts of Izumi sitting here just two weeks ago, and this _is_ adulthood, he thinks, and it sucks. Itaru has said as much. Nothing changes. It’s just this, forever.

Masumi drags the glass over his forehead. Left to right and back again.

“We lost,” he says. “Both of us.”

That’s not what this is about. This isn’t drowning sorrows or anything so dramatic; Masumi has already accepted the situation. Gotten his closure. He just says this to annoy Sakyo because Sakyo annoyed him. If he’s going to be a stupid teenager then he may as well commit.

He squints through his lashes to find Sakyo staring at him. Chin lifted, watching through the lower half of his glasses, he isn’t wearing the frown Masumi expected. He’s smiling, but only a little.

“We were never players,” he says. “She was playing a different game from the start.”

Masumi sighs and closes his eyes again. “So now what?”

That’s been the question from the start and he still doesn’t have an answer.

“If I were you,” Sakyo says, “I’d be more worried about the hangover you’re going to have in the morning. And cleaning up that mess you made.”

Sakyo gets to his feet and Masumi imagines kicking them out from under him.

“Sure,” he says.

Footsteps thud across the hardwood floor, toward the courtyard and the dorms beyond, and then Masumi is alone. Suspended in time, suspended in silence. He laughs, but only a little.

“Hey.”

Tying his shoe in the entranceway, Sakuya pops his head up to see Masumi towering over him. Wide eyes ever the picture of earnest wonder.

“That troupe you’re helping,” Masumi says, “you mentioned they need a second person.”

“Uh—oh! Yeah, Hisoka was going to but between work and—why, you want the role? I can introduce you; I was on my way there now.”

Want is a strong word, but five minutes later Masumi has his shoes on and he’s following Sakuya out the door, into the cool February sun.

It’s a small but important role. A death that sets everything in motion. During the production Masumi gets to use blood capsules, pills he keeps in his mouth until he’s stabbed, then bites down and drools the blood down his chin. It’s fun.

Off stage, the actors are nice. A couple are dramatic and loud, the way a few guys from Mankai are, but their rhythm is unfamiliar. He doesn’t get their inside jokes and they don’t know how to deal with him and Izumi doesn’t see him perform, but it’s fun. He wonders if that’s enough.

On the last day of rehearsal, the sound tech recognizes the &yet patch on Masumi’s bag. They get to talking and she ends up showing Masumi some of how theatrical sound design works, asks if he has any interest.

“I don’t know,” he says, “maybe,” and from their perch in the booth, he can see Sakuya on the stage with the others.

Sakuya, who has loved acting from the start. Tenma, who was born into it. Tsumugi, who will act until he dies. Sakyo, who takes care of Mankai the only way he knows how.

And Masumi, the usurper, who probably would have been shepherded into his father’s company after school, but who now—

This isn’t drowning in sorrow. This isn’t Masumi lost, anchorless, rudderless. Nothing so dramatic. But parting from a piece of himself means looking at what’s left.

Masumi raps his knuckle twice against the door. Juza’s the one that answers, glaring down over whatever pink frosted thing he’s eating. Not that he means to glare, but he’s glaring.

Juza doesn’t say anything. Masumi doesn’t say anything.

Juza opens the door wider. Masumi steps inside.

Banri’s laying on their couch, one leg hooked over the back. Dressed down to sweatpants and a crewneck, playing some game on his phone, judging by the way he’s tapping his thumbs. It isn’t that Masumi has never seen him in pajamas but he stays by the door, struck by some kind of intimacy. A scent on the air he easily places as Banri’s, but it’s mixed with something else. Juza, probably.

Only when the door snaps shut does Banri peer around his phone.

“Oh, hey, man,” he says, casual in that way of his. He tosses his phone onto the table and makes his way over. All legs and easy gait, scratching idly at his stomach. “What’s up?”

Masumi curls his fingers into his sleeves.

“Do my roots for me.”

“What?”

“Do my roots for—”

“No, I heard you. But—what? No, dude, get Azami to do it for you or something.”

“I want you to do it.”

Banri keeps scratching his stomach, too slow to be getting at any kind of itch. Masumi stares unblinking at his fingers, not knowing why, but it’s easier to look there than anywhere else.

“I don’t know anything about that shit, I get mine done professionally.”

“I don’t want some stranger touching me. You’ll be good at it, right?”

Whether it’s in his head or not, with Banri this much closer, that warm scent grows stronger. Warm, spiced. Cloying. Overwhelming. Masumi stares at Banri’s fingers. They slow to a stop and his arm falls.

“You’re such a pain in the ass. Fine.”

For years it’s been Masumi choking on the fumes in a bathroom alone, arms aching from being held up for so long. This time, he sits on the edge of the tub while Banri drags the handle of a comb over his scalp, separating the black from the blond—and for revenge, ties the black into two pigtails that stick up like antennae.

“This is cute,” Banri sneers, tugging one.

Masumi closes his eyes and ignores him. With no fight to fight, Banri shuts up and gets to work. It’s one of the good things about him: as long as Juza is somewhere far away, he stays pretty calm and tolerable.

“Banri.”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you think you’ll act forever?”

For a moment Banri’s hands disappear off the back of Masumi’s neck, then come back with a brush slathered in cold chemicals.

“Juza probably will,” Masumi says. Banri snorts. “Azami will probably end up in make-up. Yuki in fashion.”

“Maybe,” Banri says. “Maybe not.”

“And you?”

“Well, I’m going to school for it, so I might. Or maybe my degree will be a funny story I tell to girls at bars. I dunno. But either way, I’m here now, right?”

“Keep cruising and you’re gonna end up like Itaru.”

“Hell no. Listen, it’s not like I’m not taking things seriously, it’s just…” Banri sighs. Takes his time dipping the brush back in the bowl of bleach before he starts talking again. “I’ve wasted a lotta time looking at only the end result. When things come easy, you stop thinking about how you got there. But I am where I am and I’m not gonna let it pass me by. Not again. Know what I mean?”

Masumi squeezes his hands between his knees. He does know. Or he wants to.

Banri said once before that they’re alike. At the time Masumi didn’t care to put any thought into it, but afterwards—eventually—what Masumi knew about Banri and knew about himself naturally painted the picture.

In a pattern only obvious when Masumi looks at the whole, the two of them have been circling each other since before they ever met. Those stories Masumi used to hear about Banri, the glimpses they would catch of each other in the hallways; Banri with his hair bleached the same blond Masumi bleaches his. One acting out, one withdrawing in. Both getting nowhere fast.

And now, in the same company but different troupes. Years they’ve known each other. Inevitable, probably. Something so natural Masumi never noticed until he finally turned and looked behind him. Same with everyone in Spring Troupe, everyone in Mankai.

Banri’s hands move gently. He’s careful not to pull, careful not to drip. Masumi, with his eyes closed, he could probably sleep like this.

“Banri.”

“Yeah.”

“My birthday is soon.”

“Is it? Hadn’t noticed.”

“What are you getting me?”

“I ain’t getting you shit. Consider this your present.”

Masumi smiles. Antennaed alien that he is, speaking in a strange tongue, he says, “At least come somewhere with me. There’s something I wanna do.”

“What?”

Banri whips his head around the moment the words are out of Masumi’s mouth. Sitting behind the glass counter, that same woman is there again, face twisting into a crooked grin. The rings in her lips tilt and Masumi wets his own.

“You sure? Don’t you wanna start with something more tame? Lobes, or—”

Instead of answering, Masumi turns his attention to the jewelry on display inside the counter, glittering under the fluorescent light. Waiting on the couch by the window, a man flips through a magazine, and the silence between each page is filled by a buzzing tattoo gun from somewhere deeper in the shop. One article later, Masumi feels Banri’s gaze finally leave him.

“Well… guess it’s pretty you to go hard right out the gate.” Banri pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and taps it against the counter. “I’ll pay. It’s this guy’s birthday, after all.”

Once that’s settled, Banri follows them into the small room without being asked, claiming he wants to see if Masumi cries. They take their places opposite the first time, with Banri acting as the coat rack and Masumi sitting sideways on the chair.

Bathed in the harsh glow of fluorescent light, Masumi’s heart pounds in a way he’s never known, throwing itself against his lungs. He digs his palms into his thighs, hard, and takes a deep breath that trembles in time with the beat.

This time the preparation routine includes a pair of forceps with elastic around the handles so the piercer has to work to keep them open, and a cup of mouthwash she hands to Masumi. Once he rinses and spits, his eyes find Banri’s.

“It’s a total rush,” Banri said on the drive over. “Real addictive.”

Sitting at the wheel of Chikage’s car, he gazed into the traffic ahead and tapped the gearshift in time with the radio. His loud voice filled the sedan and easily overtook the song’s climax. Around him, everything else becomes secondary.

“Used to be that’s what fights were like—that anticipation, that hyper-awareness, y’know? Like, you know what’s coming and just… man…” He shook his head and smiled. “You’ll see. There’s _nothing_ else like it.”

The song playing in the shop, Masumi thinks, he will always remember it. The smell of chemicals and rubber gloves. His erratic heartbeat. And when Masumi and Banri smile at the same time, he will always remember that, too.

“Okay,” the piercer says, “stick out your tongue.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again for the comments and everything, it means a lot  
> i didn't get into banri's side of things like i wanted to, but i'm HOPEFULLY writing a sequel and i will HOPEFULLY see you there
> 
> if anyone is interested:  
> [song that inspired the title](https://youtu.be/ncCHGgff6Yo)  
> [band that inspired the band](https://youtu.be/Cza3QPEG7Mk)
> 
> take care & stay safe

In the engine room of the spaceship of the practice room, Masumi as Reston is up to his elbows in mechanical innards. With the help of Banri as Leeder, he’s converting it into something of a hydroponics bay, because while the ship will never fly again, it’s still home.

Reflected in the mirror, Itaru as Wax is far away on the bridge. And with Sakyo as Navidson and Omi as Holloway out scouting, Chikage as Johnny holed up in his room, galactic emptiness presses in on every side. They may as well be the only people in the universe.

Cursory scans show that’s the case on a planetary scale. The six of them, crashed on an arctic wasteland with no sentient life.

Banri as Leeder says his line. Itaru as Wax says his line. Masumi as Masumi rubs his tongue ring against the roof of his mouth.

The swelling is gone and this shorter bar is less cumbersome than the one he was pierced with. Sometimes he forgets about it; sometimes it’s in every word and every silence.

“It’s an adjustment.” Banri as Leeder makes a sweeping gesture to the engine that isn’t there, inviting every sense to see it. “We’re about as far as it gets from farmers. Can barely remember the last time I even stood on soil.”

He’s good.

“But we’ll hold out until Wax and Johnny get communications back online, then flag down some nice, kind spacefarers and—”

“And then what?” Masumi as Reston gets to his feet. He wipes the grease that isn’t on his hands onto the coveralls he isn’t wearing. It’s too early for adlibs, they’ve barely started to figure out blocking, but he shakes his head. “Do we take them for all they have?”

Banri as Leeder doesn’t move like he’s supposed to. His arms fall, his shoulders slouch. In and out of character, there’s a challenge in his eyes. A curl to his lips.

“Not this time,” he says. “Until we reach civilization, we are but simple merchants who had the misfortune of crossing paths with pirates.”

“And? How far do we take it? Once we’re back on our feet, do we get a new ship and do the same thing all over again? Or do you really expect us to live some frontier life?”

“Is that what you want?” Banri as Leeder bends to pick up the soldering gun they borrowed from Tetsuro. “Do you even know what you want?”

He’s so good. Masumi and Reston both, all they can do is glare, head full of everything they know about themselves and the gaps of what they don’t.

“Whatever happens,” Banri as Leeder goes on, “we’ll survive to see it, right? We got you. And I know you got us.”

Masumi as Reston glares and snatches the gun. Though he doesn’t speak, he puts everything he has into the movement. This isn’t just attitude but a promise, and the confidence he’ll come through. Banri as Leeder picks up on everything. He smiles, something more genuine than his usual frivolous attitude.

“Alright, stop.”

Izumi claps twice, each a sonic boom leveling the world to dust. Beams of orange sunlight stream through the practice room windows and filter through the wreckage. Actors step through the rubble and life and sound come flooding back to the world.

Banri sighs and brushes his hair out of his face. “What the hell was that?”

Masumi shrugs.

“No, no, it was good” Izumi says, “real good. Added something to their relationship; you might think about keeping it. I only stopped you because it’s getting late.”

Omi looks at his phone. “Oh, we should get started on dinner.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Good job though, guys. And Masumi, can I talk to you before you go?”

The room fills with noise, mumbled goodbyes, rustling fabric, the squeak of sneakers. Quiet eventually wins out, and Masumi and Izumi are the only ones left.

(Banri is the last to go, smacking his open palm against the doorframe. The moment their eyes meet, Masumi knows: this is far from over. Next time. Next time.)

For now, he takes the stack of chairs Izumi is struggling to carry.

“Is everything okay?”

Izumi smiles as she dusts off her hands. “Perfect. I actually just wanted to ask if you, after we clean up, wanna come shopping with me real quick? There’s some stuff I gotta pick up for dinner; I could really use the help.”

When Masumi first showed Izumi his tongue ring, her top lip curled in a way that was supposed to be a smile, but that made her look like an animal bearing its teeth. Like she was stuck somewhere between fight and flight. Between kind lies and ugly truths.

Saint that she is, spirit of benevolence, “Ohh, wow,” she said.

Interesting, she called it. She could never do anything like that, but it’s cool, definitely.

Her words.

“I won’t be able to eat any spicy curry while it heals,” Masumi told her.

Only to that, with her hand over her heart, did she look genuinely distressed.

“Oh, right,” she says now, dropping beef strips into the basket he carries, “I’m supposed to ask: do you want a record player? My girlfriend’s parents recently refurbished one and when I told her you collect vinyls, she thought you might be interested. It’s yours, if you want it.”

Except she doesn’t say ‘my girlfriend.’ Hiroko, she calls her. Hiroko, not with not the excited smile of a new relationship, but with the simple ease of familiarity and comfort. The kind that comes with Hiroko having stayed for dinner at the dorm countless times, with Omi knowing her favourite dish and everyone always so excited to see her.

“Here, I’ve got pictures.” Izumi pulls out her phone and swipes around before showing him. Minimalist, polished. Slick and dark as oil. “You want it?”

“Have you asked Guy?”

Izumi smiles and drops her phone back in her pocket. “I did, actually. _Technically_ , he already bought it, but whether he keeps it depends on whether you want it.”

“What? Why?”

“Late birthday gift?”

“It’s August.”

“Early Christmas present. I don’t know.” Izumi gestures to a nearby aisle and leads him down it. They weave between families and singles staring at the colourful shelves as Izumi elbows Masumi’s arm. “There doesn’t need to be an occasion. You guys are family. We all are.”

Masumi bows his head and fidgets with his bangs.

In the beginning, she did this almost constantly. Reiterating that they’re family, that the whole company loves each other. Counterproductively asserting that everything is fine and normal and nothing has changed. But she’s doing it less now, or at least no more than everyone else does all the time. Things have changed, but they’ve slid into a new rhythm. One with that same ease of comfort.

Izumi cackles and slaps Masumi’s arm. “Aw, did I embarrass you?”

“No.” Masumi lifts his head. “But birthday or Christmas, you just ruined the surprise.”

That wipes the grin off her face.

“Oh,” she says, “shit.”

Aside from the turntable (which Masumi accepts on the condition that Guy will use it whenever he wants), Hiroko’s shop gets in vinyls quite often. They let Masumi and Guy get first pick, which is how Masumi gets his hands on a rare Blue Dale demo, and how Banri ends up in his room after practice, bent across a couch he’s too tall for.

“Wish they’d kept the bass this high in the mix.” Arm draped over his eyes, Banri digs his heels into the armrest. “But at least it’s better than whatever they were doing on In the Wake of Leviathan.”

“I liked the mixing on that album,” Masumi says. He sits crosslegged at the table, colouring the book Azuma gave him when he stopped by their room to make absolutely sure Guy was _positive_ he didn’t want this record. “Everyone complained but it was good.”

“Nah, man, the vocals were so drowned out.”

“On purpose.” Masumi drops his pencil and picks up a different colour. “Whole album’s about memories, locations… going back somewhere you haven’t been in years.” He crouches lower, eyeing the pencil tip as he drags it along the edge of a narrow part. “Mixing made it… dunno… hazy. Overwhelming. Like remembering a dream, I guess.”

“Hmm…”

The couch springs groan. From the sound of things, Banri’s rolling over, and Masumi knows for sure when something touches the back of his head, combing through his hair. He slaps Banri’s hand away.

“Hey, just checking. Your roots are coming in again. I’ll do them for you, if you want.”

Masumi glares over his shoulder. Laying on his side, Banri’s got his head propped up on his hand, his legs bent to make him small enough to fit. Too big for the couch, too big for the world.

He changed his septum jewelry a while ago too, at the same time Masumi changed his tongue ring. Banri had tagged along, said he may as well get something while he was there. From a captive bead ring to a circular barbell.

The other day, he drank from a can and the ring got caught on the tab. Last week, he bit into a cupcake and got icing on it. Thinking about it, Masumi realizes, if Banri were to kiss someone, it would press against their top lip the same way it would press against his. Together in that moment but undeniably apart. That line so angrily carved into the dirt, but far from a chasm so wide they can’t reach across.

Banri squints. “What?”

“Are you gonna get more piercings?”

“Not anytime soon. What about you?”

Masumi rubs his tongue ring against the roof of his mouth. The secret kept behind his teeth, the glint between words, for no one but himself and whoever he chooses to share it with.

“No,” he says.

“No?”

“No. I like yours, though.”

That gets a smile. A lazy thing, with lidded eyes and a mouth barely committed. Something more genuine than his usual smirk. Looking the way he does, like sleep could take him at any moment, Banri’s nice like this.

A pause, a jumbled metric tonne of one second thoughts, then Masumi puts down his pencil and scoots closer. Close enough to lean against the edge of the couch.

“Can I see them?”

“What d’you—?”

Masumi reaches over.

Banri doesn’t move. Not when Masumi tucks his hair behind his ear and cups the shell of it, not when he drags his thumb over the steel cross pierced through his cartilage, reverent as a prayer, and not when he pinches Banri’s lobe between his index and middle finger. Masumi presses it with his thumb and feels the metal bar inside. Hard beneath soft flesh. Something foreign and unnatural that his body accepted and healed around.

Banri doesn’t move, but he’s watching. Masumi keeps his gaze on his hand, even as Banri’s threatens to burn straight through him.

“You’re, uh…” The laugh Banri forces comes out breathless. Its heat sears Masumi’s wrist. “You never change, huh?”

Too big for the couch, too big for the world, but such an easy fit in the palm of Masumi’s hand.

Another attempt to get what he can’t from adlibs. Or to unsettle Banri, to take him down a notch. The excuses are there if he wants them, but Masumi has never been one to detract. From the start he has been a creature of want. And he does, he wants again.

“Now what?”

Banri’s trying for his usual bravado but the tremor in his voice gives him away. Head full of endings, of his first love and his parents’ marriage, Masumi is no braver.

He pulls away. Stumbles over a word, apologetic and unformed.

“Hey—” Banri curls his fingers around Masumi’s wrist. Gentle enough that Masumi could pull free, but strong enough that he knows Banri doesn’t want him to. “Hey, it’s okay.”

Knelt the way he is, Masumi’s thinking about how his knees hurt so bad. He needs to think something romantic. Something picture-perfect, like the movies, something that makes a good memory. Heart beating so hard he can hear it in his breath, Masumi can’t move, the song is almost over, someone needs to flip the record, and his knees just hurt so bad.

Banri tightens his grip, pulls Masumi in, and then it’s true, he does, he feels the septum ring as if it was his own.

The song is over. Someone needs to flip the record, but Masumi breathes deep and buries his face where Banri’s neck meets his shoulder. If the couch was too small for one, it’s even worse for two. With the way he’s piled halfway on top, legs bent by the armrest, the only thing keeping Masumi from tumbling to the floor is the arm around his waist.

“You’re killing me,” Banri mumbles, slapping Masumi’s back. “Arm’s all numb.”

Masumi grunts.

“Move.”

Masumi grunts.

If he moves, then Banri might decide it’s more comfortable to sit another way, further apart. A way where Masumi can’t hear Banri’s heart beating just as hard as his own. Better not to rock the boat.

Banri sighs. “Got the strangest feeling you’re gonna give me a lot of trouble.”

“I won’t. I’ll treat you well.”

The hand on Masumi’s back moves clumsily, roving up and down the dip of his waist, either because Banri’s awkward or because Masumi’s weight has crushed it bloodless.

“Yeah,” is all Banri says, but he says it in such a way that he doesn’t need to say more.

Masumi squeezes his eyes shut tighter, focuses on that heartbeat.

One day soon, he thinks, he’ll get Banri to nap with him in the courtyard, where they’ll actually be able to straighten their legs. After so many years, he knows all the best places. Where the sun shines and when.

With the way things are in Mankai, everyone will see them. First instinct is: let them. Second: it’s none of their business. So maybe they’ll do it at night, after everyone else is in bed. When the stars are out and the breeze is cool.

It’ll have to be soon. Summer is almost over, they’re already running out of time.

The door opens.

“Oh—uh, sorry. Sorry—”

The door shuts.

Masumi lifts his head but there’s nothing to see; Tsuzuru is already somewhere far away. Or he’s just on the other side of the door, having some kind of crisis. Banri laughs in the back of his throat and tugs Masumi back down, his broad hand warm between Masumi’s shoulderblades.

“Wait.” Masumi lifts himself enough to give him enough space. “Here. Move.”

Banri shakes his arm with muttered thanks, then loops it around Masumi’s neck instead. This leaves Masumi dangling over the edge of the sheer drop—until he clings to Banri’s waist. Which is fine, too. All that worrying for nothing.

Even if Summer runs out on them, they have next year, and all the days in between. He has to remember that.

They have time.


End file.
